Easter
Beloved. What a day of great joy Easter is for us! We gather together in church to hear the Easter Gospel, to receive in word and sacrament the gifts our risen Savior is giving us—the forgiveness of sins and eternal life. We gather joyfully in the presence of our Lord Jesus—our risen and ascended, our victorious Lord Jesus —and He gives us Himself: His holy body and precious blood, uniting with us so that we are in Him and He in us and we, then, with one another. We give our Lord our prayers and praises and sing to Him our hallelujahs. What a day of great joy, for here is the foundation of our holy Christian faith—Jesus’ resurrection. St. Paul puts it this way [1 Cor. 15.17, 20]: And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins!...But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. By His suffering, torture and death on the cross, Jesus paid for the sins of the world. There on the cross the salvation of the world was won. Vial after vial of God’s wrath was poured out on Jesus, bearing our sins. When He shouted in triumph from the cross, “It is finished”, the salvation of the world had been accomplished: Jesus reconciled sinful humanity with the holy God. Now on Easter, when Jesus rose from the dead, there was God’s public absolution/ forgiveness announced to the whole world. All of the sin of the world—yours, mine, all people’s—that Jesus took with Him to the cross to suffer and pay the penalty for, lay dead and buried in the tomb but Jesus rose from the dead. The sin of the world that Jesus had taken on Himself to the cross—our sin—no longer had any claim on Him—He paid the price—and so He was raised from the dead. So with Jesus’ resurrection, Easter, is announced to us Jesus’ victory over sin and so our forgiveness; and with the defeat of sin, Easter also proclaims to us death’s defeat.
That’s why Easter is such a day of great joy for us! That’s why the Church sings: Welcome, happy morning! But that first Easter morning was certainly anything but that! Our text begins: But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. The women went to the tomb. Their hopes of Jesus had been dashed. They, like all the disciples, had hoped that Jesus was the Savior, the one who would redeem Israel [Lk. 24.21], but their hopes had been crushed when they saw Jesus tortured to death on the cross and placed dead in the tomb. But these faithful women still loved Jesus and wanted to show Him one final honor and prepare His body for what they thought was its permanent rest. They took the spices they had prepared; they took them because they thought Jesus’ body would rot and decay in the tomb like all other bodies.
What a contrast between us and these faithful spice bearing women and all the faithful that first Easter morning! What desolation and devastation these faithful experienced that first Good Friday to Easter. Our faith, though, rests upon centuries of Easter Sunday celebrations and proclamations. We know that Jesus’ death didn’t end all; but they didn’t. And that’s how they went to the tomb.
But even as they were going, God had nature preach to them: at early dawn, they went to the tomb. Here as they were preparing and getting ready to leave it was the darkest night; it’s darkest before the dawn. But as they were going, the new day was breaking; the day snuck up on the night and began overtaking it. The dawn promised a new day. And that’s exactly what they would find—not only was it a new earthly 24 hour day, but a new day in the history of the world: the world’s Savior had come and had carried out His work; the salvation of the world, the forgiveness of sins was now an accomplished historical fact. Just like at the first day of creation, when there was nothing but darkness, God created light: “Let there be light!” So now is a new day, a new first day, on the first day of the week. With the first Easter, a new day had dawned—sin, devil, death and hell are vanquished.
Our text continues: And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. Here we see the most wonderful fruitless search—if the women had been successful in their search and found Jesus’ body, sin, death, devil and hell would still be victorious. But the stone was rolled away from the tomb to preach to the women and to us today: “Come in, look around! There is no body here. Jesus, your Savior, is risen. He is alive!” And now they hear the proclamation of the resurrection from heavenly preachers, two angels: While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel. And as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.” Unlike the other events of our Lord’s life which were public—like His crucifixion—here the resurrection is never described but just the fact of it is told. There were no witnesses of the actual coming to life since Jesus was alone, in the dark of the tomb. To make sense of the events, heavenly preachers must be the first to proclaim the Easter Gospel: Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Later, with His post-resurrection appearances, Jesus would show Himself alive to His disciples with many infallible proofs. Looking for Jesus but not finding His body, trying to figure out what was going on, they suddenly recognize they are in the presence of supernatural beings, holy beings, two angels and so they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground. But now the women have the preaching of these angels.
What a glorious pronouncement of victory: Why do you seek the living One among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. This is a jubilant, forceful announcement of Jesus’ victory over death! Jesus is the living One. Not only is He risen from the dead, but He Himself is the source of life because He is the almighty God Himself! The holy evangelist clearly says about Jesus [Jn. 1.4]: In Him was life. Why should the One from whom all life comes, the One who defeated death be where you would find dead people—in a tomb? Yes, Jesus truly was dead. Yes, He truly died on the cross—there is no doubt about it: the blood and water coming from His speared side, the declaration of the Romans all testify to the fact that Jesus truly died. But death could not hold Him. What happened was when Jesus died, He died to destroy death. Luther describes this in a rather picturesque way [LW 22:355]: Christ died; death devoured the Son of God. But in doing so death swallowed a thorn and had to get rid of it. It was impossible for death to hold Him. For this Person is God; since both God and man in one indivisible Person entered into the belly of death and devil, death ate a morsel that ripped its stomach open. Death has lost its power hold over all. So when the angel asks, Why do you seek the living One among the dead? He is not here, but has risen, he proclaims the Easter Gospel. He is saying that Jesus is the very God, the Savior, that He destroyed death and that death is taken away.
This is the very reason that He has come. The angel told the women: Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise. Jesus had to suffer and die and rise again. That’s what God’s plan for the saving of the human race required. It required Jesus’ death. And because Jesus perfectly paid the price for the sins of the world by living for us a holy sinless life and enduring the wrath of God, He rose from the dead that first Easter. No sin remains and death is destroyed. All that was part of God’s plan to save us from sin, death, devil and hell and to give us His gifts and graces and make us heirs of heaven and His dear children. And all this He taught in the OT, as Jesus chides disciples later that first Easter [Lk. 24.25-26]: O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into His glory? It is a fruitless search for Jesus among the dead—He is risen! That is our Easter joy.
Our Easter joy builds. Not only is it fruitless to search for the living Jesus in the grave, but, as St. Paul writes [1 Cor 15.20]: But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. Because Jesus rose from the dead, so too will we also rise from our graves come the Last Day. Jesus is the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep, that means Jesus is the first and come the Last Day, at Jesus’ command, all the dead will rise. And why? Because Jesus destroyed death; it cannot hold us anymore but must surrender its victims. Death is a defeated enemy. We need not fear death. Yes, unless Jesus returns again first, we will all die because we are sinners and the wages/ consequence of sin is death.
But because of Jesus and His Easter morning victory, death does not have the final word. Jesus does. Life does.
It is difficult to believe. After all, we have all experienced the grief and suffering of the death of so many close and dear to us. We feel in our aches and pains and sufferings and illness that death is chasing us and that we, too, will die. But let us hear the pronouncement of the angels: Why do you seek the living One among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Just like Jesus’ resurrection was difficult for the women to believe and the apostles—Now it was Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James and the other women with them who told these things to the apostles, but these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them, so also it is difficult for us to believe that Easter means life for us—our resurrection on the Last Day and the resurrection of all our loved ones.
Although all people—both believers and unbelievers—will be raised on the Last Day at Jesus’ word because with His resurrection He destroyed death, only the Christian will have the full blessing and glory of the fruit Jesus’ resurrection victory—eternal life, soul and body in heaven. When we stand before the grave of a loved one or soon fear being in our own grave, let us remember the words of the angels proclaiming Easter: Why do you seek the living One among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Think of all the preparations these women made to prepare Jesus’ body for burial; think of all their fears and sorrows. They were all unnecessary in light of Easter. The same applies to us. We, dear Christian, need not fear death. Yes, we will sorrow over the death of our loved ones but we need not sorrow like those who have no hope, who do not know and believe the angel’s Easter proclamation: Why do you seek the living One among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Jesus is still the Living One—also for us.
Dear Christian, already now by the work of the Holy Spirit we have been brought to life—full spiritual life, life in the Lord. We have been given the gift of faith—faith that trusts in Jesus and His saving work and faith that receives the forgiveness of sin and eternal life He gives and offers us. When we die, dear Christian, or our loved ones who have died in the faith, our souls go immediately to heaven to be with our Lord. Come the Last Day, when Jesus gives the command and death must cough up all its victims because Jesus conquered it and the dead are raised, the bodies of His dear Christians will be raised holy, perfect, free from sin and all its blemishes and defects. Soul and glorified body will be reunited and our Lord’s dear Christians will then be with Him for all eternity in the glories of heaven. Earlier, Jesus had said [Jn 11.25]: I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me though he may die, he shall live. In faith in Jesus, we go from life to life—life here on earth in the Lord, to life in heaven with our Lord, and on the Last Day life with our Lord soul and body. All this because Jesus rose from the dead that first Easter: Why do you seek the living One among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. INJ